


The sins of fathers and sons

by Ariana (Ariana_El)



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Valinor feasts, and get ideas, children get bored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28272981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariana_El/pseuds/Ariana
Summary: The children of the House of Finwe find a way to amuse themselves during a feast.
Kudos: 20
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2020





	The sins of fathers and sons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_girl_that_time_forgot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_girl_that_time_forgot/gifts).



> English version of the story written for meg-pond.

**The sins of fathers and sons**

Festivals and feasts at the royal palace were always a thrill for both adults and children, the latter finding each time something new and exciting. For Celegorm it was watching everything from a new perspective. At first he stayed with his older brothers, glad that he had been deemed old enough to sit with the grown-ups, but when the gathered elves dispersed in the halls and the gardens and his brothers disappeared somewhere with Fingon, he found himself being bored. So when Amme asked him to check if his younger brothers were not quarrelling, Celegorm used the pretext eagerly and left. Curufin and Caranthir had solemnly promised Nerdanel they would behave, but... Celegorm hoped he wouldn’t have to intervene. He wasn’t Maedhros to know how to deal with soothing ruffled feathers.

The festivities were also a wonderful opportunity for the younger participants to explore the palace gardens or usually unused chambers when the feast was becoming too long. It took a while before Celegorm located his younger brothers building a tower along with Angrod and Aegnor out of everything they could find, from twigs to empty plates. He didn’t really want to join them or startle them and thus ruin their work, and he was about to venture further to find perhaps Maglor, when he heard someone calling him.

“Tyelkormo, come help us!”

Turning around, Celegorm saw Finrod waving at him. He and Turgon were trying to carry a pile of boards, which was intriguing enough.

“What is it?”

“Grandfather has had the wainscot replaced before the feast in one of the halls,” explained Turgon. Unlike Feanor, Fingolfin and his family had come a few days earlier to grandfather Finwe. “These are no longer needed, but look how smooth they still are, they will be perfect,” he claimed excitedly and Finrod nodded in agreement. Seeing that Celegorm had no clue what they were talking about, they started explaining one over the other what idea they had for fun. The smooth boards, they said, should be great for sliding down one of the wide staircases in the palace. They had in mind using the one in the western wing leading to the gardens. It wasn’t frequently used at the moment and the stairs rose in a gentle flight that curved halfway up at a right angle and disappeared in a corridor on the next floor.

“Sound’s like a plan,” Celegorm grinned. He no longer needed to find his brothers to keep himself occupied. “Give me some.”

“Perhaps we can make a competition, if these boards work well,” suggested Finrod. “We have plenty of time.”

Sliding down the stairs was not something any of them had ever tried and the idea sounded appealing. The less appealing part was the fact that there were more tiny interested ears around to hear them.

“What competition?” Celegorm heard Angrod asking and wondered when he had joined them. Turning around, he saw that both his cousins and brothers had sneaked on them, their tower all but abandoned.

“Don’t you want to go check what Artaresto is doing?” Finrod asked weakly, clearly without holding too much hope that his younger brothers would leave, now that they knew what kind of play he and his cousins had in mind.

“Sure not!” puffed Aegnor. “He’s minding Nerwen.”

“We want to play too,” Curufin stated. “You can’t say we can’t.”

“Or what?” Turgon crooked his head as he teased the younger boy.

The ‘I will tell Atto’ hung unsaid in the air, but before any of them vocalised it, Finrod gave his brothers a board to carry. Curufin and Celegorm took the remaining two, while Caranthir trotted behind. Turgon and Finrod clearly had planned everything beforehand, for they led their cousins picking routes where no one could see them. The echo of the feast could still be heard through the open windows they sneaked past, but their way was clear. They found the staircase empty and waiting for them.

“Alright, let’s try them from here first,” suggested Turgon standing just a few steps above the ground floor. “We couldn’t check the balance earlier.”

While the older boys tried to stand on the boards and slide without falling, Aegnor and Caranthir grabbed one of the shorter boards and dragged it up as well. There was a short argument about who was going first, but in the end Caranthir kept the board in place while his cousin straddled it, then let him go. Aegnor slid down with a giggle, Caranthir running after him. They dragged the board up again and again, taking turns. Angrod and Curufin couldn’t really decide whether it was better to slide down sitting or standing, so they were switching from one style to the other, while the older focused on the latter. It took some practicing and quite a lot of hasty jumping off the board was involved before Turgon, Finrod and Celegorm mastered balancing during the slide enough to feel confident enough to drag the boards higher.

“I want too, Ingoldo,” Aegnor called after his brother.

“Oh, we can slide together I guess,” Finrod offered after a moment of hesitation. “I will hold you.”

Celegorm finished his slide and looked up just in time to see Curufin dragging a board up after Finrod and sighed inwardly. He _hated_ being the adult one.

"You are not doing this alone." He ran up, taking two steps at a time.

"I'm hardly younger than them!" Curufin protested and waved at Finrod and Turgon. “And I know how.”

"You _are_ younger. You can slide alone from the tenth step. That's-"

At a startled cry above, Celegorm turned from Curufin, but it was already too late. He could only watch as Finrod lost balance and suddenly the board escaped from under his feet. The boy sat abruptly with a grunted "ouf!", but the momentum dragged him and he slid down after the board still carrying the now screaming Aegnor. The younger boy swept Caranthir on his way and they both tumbled down, falling to the sides at the bottom of the stairs.

For a moment there was a startled silence. Finrod, blinking in surprise, sat on the last step where he had finished the slide, with Aegnor sprawled at his feet.

Leaving the cousins to take care of one another, Celegorm rushed to his brother, who laid unmoving, glued to the marble floor. When touched, Caranthir jerked and looked up, his mouth and chin covered with blood. And then the crying started.

Celegorm picked his brother, feeling utterly helpless. He was never as good as Maedhros or Maglor in comforting his younger brothers and now, between the hysterical sobbing, he couldn’t even get a proper look at his face, as Caranthir wouldn’t even let him touch him.

Aegnor sat up, blinked at his brother, hiccupped and flooded in tears. Turgon ran down to help his cousins, with Curufin and Angrod watching the whole scene in alarm from the middle of the staircase.

“Don’t just stand like that! Bring Atto!”

“Which one?” Angrod glanced at Finrod, who scrambled on his feet and was trying to soothe his crying brother.

“Whichever,” snapped Celegorm over Caranthir’s head. “Just be quick.”

Meanwhile, in one of the smaller chambers prepared for the festivities, Feanor, Fingolfin and Finarfin were deeply involved in a discussion regarding the necessary changes in the royal palace that would improve the functionality regarding the growing needs of their growing family. When gathered together in times like this, they would often stay for days and their father’s palace was getting crowded. Since they already had Finwe's approval and some of the works were already taking place, the brothers found themselves a relatively safe topic.

Fingolfin wished to use opportunity to force some changes he had had in mind, while Feanor brought forth new ideas about the lightning. Finarfin backed their plans with structural design details and what was at first a leisure chat about the possible ideas, the three brothers quickly turned into a vivid discussion with sketches made on the nearest available sheet of paper, with splashes of wine here and there as one of them tipped a goblet. There were healthy proportions of fun and arguing as the ideas kept evolving, but before the brothers could talk about the possible rearranging of the palace gardens, they were quite abruptly interrupted by a pit-a-pat of tiny feet and then bombarded with a chaos of explanations provided by Curufin and Angrod, both too agitated to be making much sense. There wasn’t much point in trying to make them slow down and explain what was amiss, so the fathers just followed their sons. Fingolfin joined them as well, as his own offspring was likely involved too.

The boys did well and instead of bringing one, they brought all three fathers. Celegorm would have thought it amusing, for it wasn’t everyday one could see the three High Princes going in such an agreeable haste, had his brother not smeared the blood running from his nose all over his cheeks when he had tried to cover his face. And had he not been crying so hysterically.

“What happened here?” Feanor glanced at the children, then at the board by Finrod’s feet and looked like he fought an urge to roll his eyes.

“It was an accident!” Finrod and Celegorm both rushed to reassure them.

“I’m sure it was.” The eldest son of Finwe nodded distractedly and knelt by Caranthir. He firmly took his hands away from his face and first of all made sure the nose wasn’t broken, then gently wiped the blood from the cut lip with his finger.

”It is alright, Moryo, just lean forwards and let it pass,” he instructed calmly and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Carnistir sniffed and glared, then, seeing his father still kneeling at his level, wrapped his thin arms around his neck and did as he was told, burying his face in his collar. With a sigh, Feanor picked him and stood up.

“Here, it’s cold,” Fingolfin came closer and passed him his goblet, now almost empty. Feanor nodded in thanks and forced his son to let go of his collar. Once he could see Caranthir’s face again, still red, though some of the blood had been smeared on his robes, he gently pressed the cool metal to the tender nose.

The boy yelped and tried to escape, balancing on his father’s hip.

“Be still, Moryo, it will help.”

"Whose brilliant idea was this?" asked Finarfin once he too made sure Aegnor needed mostly wiping tears and washing his scraped palms.

Finrod and Turgon glanced at each other, but stayed silent.

“We really didn’t mean that...” Celegorm tried to support his cousins.

"And you didn't know better than to stop this foolishness before someone got hurt?" Fingolfin asked, turning towards Celegorm, the eldest among all the children present.

Celegorm looked offended. "I didn't let Moryo or Curvo go all the way down on their own!" he exclaimed and Curufin's annoyed huff backed him up.

"But it was perfectly alright to let the other youngest go."

"Leave it, Nolofinwe," Feanor cut him off with a hint of annoyance, rocking Caranthir in his arms. "My son is not a handler of your offspring."

“I don’t need handling,” muttered Turgon under his breath before Finrod stepped on his foot.

“We are still waiting for an explanation,” Finarfin reminded them sternly. “How did you come up with such a foolish idea to let your younger brothers participate in your hazardous and foolish antics?”

“We didn’t!” objected Finrod weakly. “We went together, only it didn’t work...” he trailed off and winced. Aegnor nodded and looked at his hands, sniffling.

“Did you hurt yourself as well?” Finarfin turned towards his eldest.

“No, no,” Finrod reassured him and wiped his trousers. “I’m fine, Atto.”

Finarfin wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t comment. The children still were not too eager to enlighten their fathers as to what exactly had happened that had resulted in a quite unexpected landing, but any further inquiries were interrupted by Lalwende who came in from the gardens. She stopped at the doorstep, quite surprised to see the whole gathering.

“Why are you occupying the corrid-“ she noticed the boards and grinned. “Oh, so you’re here already.”

“Irime, you’re not helping,” Fingolfin sighed ostensibly.

“Don’t intend to when you’re having fun without me,” Lalwende’s melodious laughter echoed on the corridor as she regarded her brothers and nephews critically. “As far as I can see, everyone’s more or less in one piece. And don’t tell me you forgot how much fun that was.”

Celegorm had hard time trying not to snicker. His father looked a bit like Maedhros, whenever he tried to act like an adult towards his younger brothers and failed. Feanor was doing only marginally better.

And it was all the boys needed.

”Atto, does it mean you too...?” Turgon bolted a question just as Finarfin had to deal with three pairs of curious eyes looking at him expectantly. Caranthir was still sulking, but Celegorm and Curufin were too interested in hearing a story that would not involve them giving any explanations.

“Leave me out of it,” Feanor huffed at his sister.

“Oh come now, you did play too!” Lalwende objected. She was clearly having too much fun at her brothers’ expense. “If only to make sure we wouldn’t mess up.”

“That was not the point,” Finarfin cut them off. “Whoever came up with this idea, I believe you all can draw conclusions for yourselves,” he looked sternly at both his sons and nephews.

“And I think you have some mess to clean.” Fingolfin added and pointed at the disregarded boards. It seemed, though nobody said anything, that they all assumed the eldest boys were responsible for the whole idea.

“Oh...”

“Want Amme,” muttered Caranthir over the hesitant objections. His voice was still thick and he was unusually clingy.

“Yes, I think that was enough excitement for today,” agreed Feanor and passed the goblet back to Fingolfin “Let’s get you cleaned before Amme sees you and then,” he looked pointedly at his brothers, “perhaps we can finish. Curvo, you are going with me too.”

“But-“

“No ‘buts’.”

Beside them, Finarfin was having the same argument with Angrod and Aegnor, who were clearly unwilling to leave. Neither of the fathers surrendered and the youngest offspring of the House of Finwe was promptly taken away.

Not fast enough, however, not to hear Lalwende who stayed behind.

“Alright, before we clean all that. Want to see _how_ it’s done?”


End file.
